Half of Ted Cruz’s political claims are false, PolitiFact reports

Since his arrival on the national political scene, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been making headlines.

He has become a hero to many on the right because of his relentless attacks on the Obama administration and his aggressive brand of constitutional conservatism. But liberals have likened the outspoken Houston Republican to the late Joe McCarthy, dubbed him the Senate’s “biggest loser” and, now point to the PolitiFact web site’s finding that he, well, often doesn’t tell the truth.

PolitiFact is a Pulitzer prize winning project that rates the claims of office-seekers and office-holders. Its Texas branch is headed up by the Austin American-Statesman’s Gardner Selby, one of the most respected political reporters in the state capital.

To assess Cruz’s accuracy rate, PolitiFact investigated 14 of the senator’s statements and found that he wasn’t telling the truth 50 percent of the time.

Seven of Cruz’s claims have earned either the grade of “pants on fire!” or “false.” The other half of the time Cruz is on the more truthful side, but has earned a perfect “true” score just once. Here’s a summary of the findings:

Cruz’s ‘pants on fire!’ claims

Cruz said President Obama “began his presidency going on a worldwide apology tour” on January 12th, 2012 in a U.S. Senate debate. PolitiFact said the president was clear during his campaign that he would make changes to foreign policy, and his early speeches were merely following through on that promise. No full apology by the president was made.

In a handout, on January 12th, 2012 Cruz said David Dewhurst has “a record of promoting a Texas income tax”. Cruz took a quote from Dewhurst way out of context, he never promoted a personal or business income tax.

This February, Cruz said Chuck Hagel’s nomination as defense secretary “has been publicly celebrated by the Iranian government”. Cruz’s term ‘celebrating’ was said to be misleading and incorrect. While the Iranian government was hopeful, there was no enthusiasm.

At the 2013 CPAC Conference, Cruz said Democrats told the Catholic Church they’ll use federal powers to shut them down if it doesn’t change it’s beliefs. While Obamacare’s contraception insurance mandate might cause some Catholic institutions to shut down, Democrats have never threatened the church.

Cruz’s ‘false’ claims

In May 2012 Cruz tweeted, “Did you know Obamacare will cost nearly twice as much as initially expected – $1.8 trillion?” PolitiFact said gross cost increase was actually 8.6 percent.

In a Republican US Senate debate in Dallas last year, Cruz said his opponent David Dewhurst had not cut “a penny” from the state budget. Cruz overlooked the 2012-2013 budget, which reduced costs from 2010-2011.

In a interview with PBS earlier this year, Cruz claimed jurisdictions with strict gun laws have the highest rates of crime and murder. PolitiFact found many exceptions to Cruz’s rule.

Ted Cruz (J. Patric Schneider / For the Chronicle)

Cruz’s ‘half-true’ statements

Cruz said our national debt is greater than our GDP in his Republican National Convention speech. “The total federal debt exceeds the nation’s economic output or GDP. However, the public debt — borrowing that relates to the economy’s strength — hovers below three quarters of the GDP.” PolitiFact said.

In a Senate committee meeting, Cruz said the claim that 40 percent of guns are sold without background checks is based on a study when background checks were not required. The survey took place during a time when one-third of states were requiring checks and the Bradley law was in its infancy.

Cruz said he has repeatedly praised Chuck Hagel’s service defending our nation. While Cruz did offer Hagel praise, it always came with harsh critique.

Cruz’s ‘mostly true’ statements

In a campaign video, Cruz said David Dewhurst skipped nine candidate forums. It is true because Dewhurst didn’t appear in nine forums, but he didn’t duck them completely, as he announced before them he would not appear.

In a campaign email, Cruz said David Dewhurst’s camp called him a ‘Chinese communist’. Emails from Dewhurst’s camp said “red Ted” consistently stands with China, but never outright called him a Chinese communist.

During a July 2012 debate in Houston, Cruz accused Dewhurst of advocating a guest worker program for illegal immigrants. Dewhurst advocated for a program for those immigrants in the United States and securing the border, earning Cruz the ‘mostly’ true rating.

Cruz’s one 100% true statement:

“We have a federal government that thinks they can regulate our toilet seats.” See our TexMessage coverage of the statement here. Cruz was right on target.